


The Last Emperor of Mandalay

by venefica_aura (crankyoldman)



Series: Psychobabble [19]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2009-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/venefica_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It figured that the first Shinra Veld might have respected was the one that had tried the hardest to dispose of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Emperor of Mandalay

**Author's Note:**

> So I realized I don't actually write Veld much during the actual Before Crisis timeline, but I've never been much of an ingame fic writer. I lifted a few lines from the script, because they were a couple of the brilliant ones. I kind of wrote this because I like how Turk loyalty seems to have had a paradigm shift between Veld and Tseng's being in charge. Also, this is me making peace with OGC!Rufus, who really annoyed me, but I liked him in AC. So, sort of tying the two together. Having written this, I no longer have any characters from the original FF7 I do not like. It's a weird feeling. Title is a play on the song "The Road to Mandalay" by Robbie Williams, which is sort of the most Veldish song I have come across in the history of ever. This has been sitting on my harddrive for ages, and because I'm under stress, I suddenly finished it. Now if only I could finish the things I'm SUPPOSED to be writing. Maybe it's telling that I revert to Veld when under stress. XD

The first time Veld had seen Rufus Shinra he'd been reminded of any of his other kids. The exterior was a cliche--poor little rich kid, not unlike a few of them--but underneath that was an obvious psychosis. Well, obvious to other crazies. Eventually they would get around to making membership badges.

Every Shinra he'd served had a vice. When he started it was Amon, who was simple in that he liked to be heard. Didn't matter what he was saying, he just wanted people to listen. Sometimes this translated to orders, but usually it translated to monologuing. Phineas was a hedonist, which explained more than anything how he'd ballooned out. He was lucky that he threw around money like it was going out of style; otherwise his other appetites probably wouldn't have been sated.

Rufus, though, his vice was pain. Inflicting it, particularly. Maybe it was to spite his hedonistic father, but as Veld had learned over the years, parents only factored in part of a person's development. Those that were stuck on their parents never fully developed anyway. He'd heard some of the younger Turks whisper about the fact he always wore white, and how he'd probably throw a fit if he got dirty.

What they failed to notice was that labcoats were the same color. Easier to spot what needed to be cleaned on a background like that, for certain, but it was also easier to see how much _damage_ had been done.

This Shinra, if intelligent enough, could pose a bit of a threat to the little niche he'd worked himself into. Then again, it was hard to tell where exactly he'd be by the time the boy was old enough to raise a ruckus.

\---

"You don't like my father much, do you, Turk?"

He smiled like he'd just found out a big secret. Even Phineas Shinra himself knew that Veld disliked him and would gladly blow his brains out if given the right motive and opportunity--what kept that from happening was an unspoken truce and maybe Veld's illogical sense of order. Being a Turk gave unbalanced kids a chance at _something_, even if it was morally reprehensible at times. His reasons for staying with them were growing thin, but even if he chose to leave, he'd let the power structure be as it was. As much as he wanted to say it was some tragic thing a person could never leave, it was just like any other job, only with better hazard pay.

"Neither do you." He had to hand it to the kid for at least accepting some education. Veld had known too many people of privilege that threw that away for whatever passing pleasure struck their fancy. He didn't like the little shit, but he could respect that at least.

"But I'm his heir, what safety net do you have for your disloyalty?"

People forgot that Veld survived not because he was the fastest, the smartest, the strongest. He survived because he had a tactical brain and virtually no fear of pain or death. Well, for himself. As some people's loss had proved, he was not immune to the pain and death of others. Lucky for him, no one save someone who had his own obsessions had ever noticed that.

He almost wanted to chuckle at the young man. "Oh, a few tricks."

Rufus Shinra was still young enough to show impatience in his face. "I think you're bluffing."

"And I think you need to go back to playing with people who are afraid of you and leave an old dog alone."

It wasn't the smartest thing he'd ever said, but Veld disliked mind games. Especially from kids that weren't even old enough to shave.

\---

He knew _exactly_ who had gotten him demoted.

Veld was honestly caught off guard by it. Maybe it was all the new kids that were distracting him, or the frustrating fact that Tseng _still_ wasn't ready to be anything besides a second in command, but it had blindsided him.

Information leaks? They had to be fucking kidding him. He knew enough about people to know that even if he told them half the things that went on in their little tower they wouldn't believe him. The people of Midgar to some extent relied on the things they didn't want to see. Ignorance was bliss, as trite as it sounded.

At least Phineas was still susceptible to blackmail. A truly logical President would have shot him on the spot, but Phineas hated to deal with disorganization. He'd practically been handed the structure of the company from Amon, and with a few threats and bribes had kept it going without too much work. Since Heideggar had proved unable to handle Turks, and the years Veld had spent putting the idea that they were _essential_ into the executives brains meant that Phineas would be faced with a big damn mess.

It hadn't even been a very good demotion. Surveillance was what he did anyway.

"Back already?" God, he didn't have time for this. Tseng sounded like he was about the hyperventilate. Tally had been much smarter than he was about a lot of things, though he wondered how it would have been had she not died. It was times like this he really wished he could ask for her guidance.

"Do you need anything, Vice President?" Veld's form of obedience and politeness could be quite an insult to someone if he wanted it to be. And considering the shitstorm that had been stirred up by Heideggar, he hoped that little ego would just leave him the hell alone.

"I just wanted to congratulate you on getting your position back so quickly. You must be quite the asset."

Veld was getting far too old for this. He had a protege to calm down and some work to do. After all, what else was there to do anymore?

"Let's not break out the champagne just yet."

\---

For once, he wished Hojo would stop being such an erratic crazyhead. Veld had only mentioned him as a possible leak in the hope that they would put some proper surveillance on him, and not _hours_ later he'd gotten word the asshole had been "abducted".

More like following some scientific shiny. These AVALANCHE kids were doing wonders for his blood pressure, that was for certain. Maybe once Tseng finally stopped freaking out every time he was more than fifty feet away he could retire. Right, _retire_. He was beginning to suspect that he should have been more reckless when he was still young enough for it to be tragic.

No, that was unfair. He was just stressed. They all were. The kids were all competent, and Tseng as acting no worse than he had for a time. Oh Tally used to get so mad at him for declaring she was going to be immortal. It was partly a hope and mostly an excuse; he might have been the type to take on responsibility when he was younger, but it didn't mean he liked it always.

Maybe he knew then, trying to keep from shouting as he gave orders into his phone--when had he literally become so detached from the missions?--and saw him skulking around the stairwell, maybe he knew that the heir wasn't going to wait for natural succession to take his place.

How would he play it this time? Or did he even want to bother?

\---

They all seemed to think he'd been born at middle age, appearing out of nowhere and keeping the machine running. Handing out assignments and rarely raising his voice. But Tseng had noticed, at least, that there were things on his mind, things he hadn't thought of in a long time.

"Sir? Are you alright?"

The flight back from Nibelheim had taken a bit of scotch to get rid of the aftertaste of ash and even worse, _memory_, so it was a wonder that he'd metabolized it all. The edges of his vision were clear; he hadn't gone overboard. Good.

He'd seen little Aeris only just two months before this latest incident. She hadn't seen him, but he hadn't had the time to spend in the slums like he used to. It was getting old using that tired excuse of needing her to find some pipe dream that Phineas was set on to keep Shinra's greedy little hands off her. Tseng did a good job looking after her. Someone's daughter was safe for the moment, at least.

"I just have a headache. How're we all holding up after the incident?"

"Good."

"Well, you'd better get the younger ones prepped, there's talk of infiltrating Wutai in a couple months."

Veld realized that he used to be put off by Tally when she spoke to him like he was speaking to Tseng. Funny how the present only seemed to validate or clarify the past. At least, the present as it had been this year. He'd get over it.

"Oh, I wasn't--"

"It's just talk. Better to be prepared, though?"

Tseng's form of obedience wasn't an insult like Veld's could be. It made him worry, some days. But even he'd started as a scared kid that took orders a little too seriously. Maybe Tseng just needed his foundations shaken a little. Veld would have to arrange that sometime.

Footsteps leaving and footsteps returning. What now?

"Oh god, did someone threaten Anna again?"

"Is that a bad thing?" Well, he had to give Rufus Shinra props on wearing practical shoes. Sounded just like any other Turk's.

"Typically. What can I do for you, Vice President?" The punk had an actual position on the board, and besides sitting in the board room arguing with his father, he hadn't had a chance to use that. Maybe that was why he was impatient and fucking with things. Too bad Veld didn't have enough proof yet.

He didn't answer, but scanned his bookshelf. At least Rufus gave him an excuse not to think about the types of things that tended to make his job difficult. Veld rarely looked at his own bookshelf anymore, not that he had the time to read, what with this idiotic AVALANCHE business and some incidents with the kids. He really had to make time, there were a few books that he hadn't read yet in there.

"History, philosophy, sociology... these subjects are a bit thick for a tool, don't you think?"

"Perhaps."

Veld couldn't help but twitch a little when Rufus pulled one of the books off a shelf--there was something very _personal_ to his books, even if it was encoded, in a way. The Dragoon decryption process was full of false starts and required a sense of inhumanity. Well, Rufus certainly had the ability to empathize somewhat, which was eerie because it reminded him a little of Valentine, minus the raging complexes. It was just going to be one of those days he couldn't quite bury himself in the matters of the present and forget anything else, was it?

"I'm going to be straight with you. You bother me. Your allegiances seem to be only to people younger than you in your department or people long dead. Which means Shinras don't actually mean anything to you."

They should have been playing chess or something equally cliche. "Whatever gives you that idea?"

"Don't insult my intelligence."

Ah, so he was still young. It was comforting knowing that people of a certain age still could have an attitude, princeling to a corporate empire or not. Valentine used to play the impatient game with him, speaking in chopped little phrases when he was annoyed with him, which was less often than it should have been. God, he was getting old, if some board member that wasn't old enough to understand what _allegiance_ really was could trip his mind into _those_ patterns.

"Vice President, I have no intention of starting any insurrections with my kids." Veld almost wanted to bite his tongue. He was getting tired of little weaknesses like that, having to watch his step. Tally hadn't taught it like that, that there was nothing a person could hold onto besides the job. In fact, she'd prescribed the opposite. After all she'd given him--

He was thinking too much, and the Shinra could see it. _Go around back behind the barn and shoot him; he's gone lame._

"This is good to hear, Veld."

\---

He'd finally had it all, the evidence he'd wanted. Not that Veld intended on turning it in to the elder Shinra--quite the contrary. As he'd learned not too many months ago, having some blackmail on a Shinra tended help his kids out. It might have given him a few more years to really make sure they were set up and then he would. Well. He hadn't thought that far, but the prospect of being shot down on whatever the hell kind of job was less appealing than it had been when he was younger.

There he was, about to crack a smile as he caught the punk redhanded, his dealings with AVALANCHE out in the open and their betrayal of him. Sure, it was written in all their manuals and practically encoded in their DNA to never betray the company, never ever, but Veld had always modified that in his mind. It tasted less bitter that way. So smirking while he ordered them to bring the Vice President with them, he could almost feel a little proud of himself.

Then the wildcard walked out. No, he heard it first, a little deeper, but that was certainly a voice he knew. He'd chided her over the phone line enough times about doing her homework and brushing her teeth and not giving her mother any trouble...

"Felicia?!"

"...Father?"

_God_ she really didn't look like her mother at all. It was jarring and he could feel Rude, Reno, Tseng's confused as hell expressions around him. There was hard evidence that he hadn't completely screwed up his life, because she was _alive_.

And they were getting away. He still had a job to do, even if whatever the hell that was _decent_ in him was telling him to go, go now, don't let another one slip away for some ironic sense of duty. His kids were telling him to go too; guess they weren't really such kids anymore.

"Do you think you can resign from the Turks alive? Impossible. the only way you can leave the Turks is by death. I'm sure you know that more than any of us." Of course, there was the rub.

Veld had often wondered about that; it wasn't policy. Maybe it had just been convenient that none of them had survived past a certain time, or had simply nothing to live for after. Whatever the case, he had something and he was going to fucking chase after it. They'd have to shoot him to stop him.

Cue blackmail thinly veiled as a peace offering. Cue fatherly advice. And he was out with nothing more than a little rhetoric and a significant look over in a certain Second's direction. Tseng was ready enough. At least he hoped he was.

The thing about politics was it rarely allowed for any kind of personal life. Personal salvation, even less so.

\---

Purgatory was a game of hide and seek, a zombie in the basement that talked like a priest, and further proof that man should leave the work of gods alone.

\---

People's real personalities came out in times of crisis and upheaval. It was why the best interrogators never had to lift a hand to anyone, because emotional turmoil always brought out a person's true hue. Of course, if that person turned out to be one of those truly unfailingly noble types, well, that was when the chains came out.

Something had clearly changed while he was gone. And he had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with certain ambitious emperor wannabes. Even the ever faithful had their limits.

"So it's either you and Felicia or them."

"Is it even a choice? Come now, I know you're smarter than that."

Oh yes, something had certainly changed, and part of him was relieved. Looks like someone had shaken his foundations for him. Took an item off his to do list. That fact that it was Tseng, in his backwards way, offering him the chance to finally die was almost comforting. It'd been offered a chance years ago, right after Ifalna had gone off to Icicle to do whatever it was she intended. Someone had given him the slip in a backstreet of Kalm and he'd almost ignored whatever fanatical deity it was that kept him going all this time. But he'd disarmed the punk and stumbled drunk into the library, and met Lora.

The prone form of his daughter on the bed in the ramshackle safe house they'd been staying reminded him that whatever deity it was, they sure had a sick sense of humor.

Tseng still hadn't said anything to him, so he figured he might as well keep talking. "There's no regulation against loyalties for personal reasons, Tseng. Just a spook story that board members tell rookies so they can sleep at night."

Tseng snorted, an almost punkish gesture that he tended to suppress around him. Seems he'd underestimated the young Shinra, to cause such subtle but fundamental changes. "No offense, Veld, but that is rather funny coming from you. I used to wrack my brain trying to figure out what it was that you were trying to teach me all these years..."

"And?"

"And that's why I'm not going to do what either of you want."

Veld always knew that once Tseng came into his own he would make one hell of a leader and not be swayed to always play nice like some. "So what do you propose?"

\---

Public executions were so rare these days, so Veld wasn't surprised to see a crowd. Felicia still hadn't recovered from the fatigue that ticking time bomb of a materia had left her with, and he suspected that when she did he was going to get an earful about never telling them exactly what his job had been. Well, it had been pleasant for a while, at least.

"...and are hereby sentenced to death by firing squad for acts of terrorism by consensus of the general board. Any last statements?" The grand executioner was deceivingly young, something he must have gone to great lengths to keep up. Now he could see why Phineas had really bred with that one woman; when Veld squinted just right, like a normal person, he could see how the white and white-blond could be blinding. He could respect that bit that knew that most human dealings were carefully crafted illusions.

What a waste of bullets a firing squad was. It was good to see his kids all managed to keep anything they might be feeling well masked. Had Tally been thinking something similar when she died?

"I hope you don't believe in ghosts, Rufus."

Best performance of his life. He should have been an actor, not a Turk.

\---

As he was officially dead, Veld had no obligation whatsoever to them. But the sky was falling and he'd heard the emperor--for he refused to believe that Rufus was truly a President once he took over--had come to a rather explosive end and no matter what the years there had been like, there was something so sacrilege about the fact that Midgar was burning.

It was how empires were supposed to go, but the city had grown up with him, to some extent and generally people had a sort of nostalgic attachment to childhood friends.

Felicia was at his elbow, as the razor-sharp girl he'd known her to be was slowly coming back and demanding answers and respect from him. He had rather hoped that rebel idealism would wear off of her, but that was merely wishful thinking. Maybe he was a little proud, too.

"So what are your orders, Chief?" It was surprisingly nice to call someone else that for a change.

"Ah, there you are. I have just the job for you."

He should have known by that uncharacteristically humorous glint in his eye that Tseng had something up his sleeve. This was clearly the end of the world, only just the day before he'd seen the zombie risen. Thankfully he had things to distract him from the unsettled feeling it had left him with.

Tseng had pointed him to what looked like a shelter of some kind, obviously it had been built a long time ago, maybe from the second war, when people were afraid the Wutains would start stealing planes and come after them. The amount it had been dug into the earth suggested that paranoia really did go a long way sometimes.

Felicia was with one of the younger Turks, many of whom had also mysteriously died or disappeared. Well, that was a way to handle things.

"Stay here and make sure he doesn't leave this spot."

Rufus fucking Shinra with his arm in a sling. Well, looked like nobody died these days. "Tseng, I am perfectly capable of helping with the evacuation."

Tseng only gave him a hard look and then left like any good Turk would; silently and before he was asked to do any mediation. Veld regretted drilling protocol so hard into his head now. It was a shame that Valentine was one of the good guys now, he would have much preferred spending the end of the world arguing with him than babysitting.

Well. It was how things went for him. "I had wondered why you put up so little of a fuss about you and that daughter of yours being sentenced to death."

"My theory that Shinras are related to cockroaches seems to be sound."

He rather enjoyed not having to call him 'sir'. Oh, Tseng was a bastard, but he was a clever one. Rufus didn't trust him, so he would keep an eye on him and not let him out of his sight, and Veld certainly didn't trust Rufus, so it was a well-orchestrated standoff, really. A means of keeping two stubborn people from wandering off anywhere.

Veld never got why people assumed he was suicidal. Just because he was comfortable with Death, and tended to feel Her presence didn't mean he was _eager_. Expecting wasn't eagerness.

"Got a cigarette? Tseng took my pack."

"Quit years and years ago."

"Figures."

He had a feeling the psychotic ex-corporate god with him probably felt the same way.

"Looks like you got your loyalty that you wanted, Rufus."

"And looks like you got your retirement."

"What'll you do now, that your dynasty is quickly being reduced to ashes and smoke?"

"Build it back up, brick by brick, and avoid using ghosts for power."

Veld could be a little bitter about the future, the way things had been left. But he felt a little more secure knowing that proper villains would still be around.

"Good answer."


End file.
